Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1299
“We love Him, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19.
VERY simple words, but very full of meaning. I think I might say of this sentence what the poet says of prayer—it is “the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try”—and yet it is one of the “most sublime strains that reach the Majesty on high.” Take a little believing child and ask her why she loves the Savior, and she will reply at once, “Because He loved me and died for me.” Then ascend to Heaven where the saints are perfect in Christ Jesus and put the same question and with united breath the whole choir of the redeemed will reply, “He has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” When we begin to love Christ, we love Him because He first loved us. And when we grow in Grace till we are capable of the very highest degree of spiritual understanding and affection, we still have no better reason for loving Him than this, “Because He first loved us.”
This morning, in trying to preach from the text, I would pray the Holy Spirit that every person here may first feel it. It is wonderful, the difference between a text read and heard and a text felt within the soul. Oh, that you, this morning, may be able to say from your hearts because you cannot help saying it, “We love Him.” If I were to say no more, but sit down in silence—and if you were all to spend the next three quarters of an hour in exercising the emotion of love to God—it would be time most profitably spent! It is, beyond measure, beneficial to the soul to take her fill of love with the Lord Jesus. It is the sweet cure for an her ailments for her to have leisure to delight herself in the Lord and faith enough to dwell at ease in His perfections. Be sure, then, to let your hearts have room, scope and opportunity for indulging and inflaming the sacred passion of love to God.
If the second part of the text shall also be made equally vivid to you by the power of faith—“He first loved us”— your hearts will be satisfied as with marrow and fatness! If the exceeding love of God in Christ Jesus shall be shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, you will need no sermon from me—your inward experience will be better than any discourse! May your love, like a drop of dew, be exhaled and carried up into the boundless Heaven of God’s love. May your heart ascend to the place where your treasure is and rest itself upon the heart of God! Blessed shall you be if, in your hearts, Christ’s love and yours shall both be fully known and felt at this moment! O, blessed Spirit, cause it to be so!
Thus should we have the text in action—and that is a thousand times better than the mere quiet letter. If you have visited the picture galleries at Versailles, where you see the wars of France from the earliest ages set forth in glowing colors upon the canvas, you cannot but have been struck with the pictures and interested in the terrible scenes. Upstairs in the same palace there is a vast collection of portraits. I have traversed those galleries of portraits without much interest, only here and there pausing to notice a remarkable countenance. Very few persons linger there—everybody seems to walk on as quickly as the polished floors allow.
Now, why is it that you are interested in the portraits downstairs and not by those upstairs? They are the same people. Very many of them are in the same dress. Why do you not gaze upon them with interest? The reason lies here—the portrait in still life, as a rule, can never have the attraction which surrounds a scene of stirring action. There you see the warrior dealing a terrible blow with his battle-ax, or the senator delivering an oration in the assembly, and you think more of them than of the same bodies and faces in repose. Life is impressive! Action awakens thought! It is just so with the text. Look at it as a matter of doctrinal statement—“We love Him, because He first loved us”—and if you are a thoughtful person you will consider it well. But feel the fact itself, feel the love of God—know it within your own soul and manifest it in your life—and how engrossing it becomes!
May it be so by the power of the Holy Spirit this morning! May you be loving God while you are hearing and may I be loving Him intensely while I am preaching! With this as an introduction, I shall use the text for four purposes. First,
for doctrinal instruction. Secondly, for experimental information. Thirdly, for practical direction. And fourthly, for argumentative defense.
I. We shall use the text, briefly, for DOCTRINAL INSTRUCTION—and one point of doctrinal instruction is very clear, namely, that God’s love to His people is first. “He first loved us.” Now, be sure of this point of doctrine, because forgetfulness about it is connected with much error and with more ignorance. The love of God to us precedes our love to God. According to Scripture it must be first in the most eminent sense because it is eternal. The Lord chose His people in Christ Jesus from before the foundations of the world. And to each one of His people that text may be applied—“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.”